And I do.
I shatter. I tremble. I lose everything but the quaking of my body and his tongue and fingers until I come back to the present and gasp out his name again, “Gabe,” I say and it’s a plea. I’m going to fall. I have no control over my body. He does. He has it all.
He lowers my leg from his shoulder, wraps his arm around my waist and then his lips are on my belly, kissing it, tender and somehow demanding. I can feel his need, his hunger for more, but he holds back. Why is he holding back? “Gabe,” I whisper again and now my hands are free, my fingers diving into his blond hair. “Gabe?”
He looks up at me and any thought I might have had that he was done, that something had happened to end this, fades with the smoldering heat in his eyes. “Say it again. Say my name.”
“Gabe,” I whisper, because the truth is, I like saying his name. I like reminding myself that there is nothing about this night that has anything to do with my past.
That simmering heat in his eyes ignites and he’s on his feet in an instant, cupping my face. “That’s right. Gabe. The man that has you on my tongue.” He closes his mouth over mine, and he kisses me, the taste of me on his lips, now on mine. I don’t expect it to be as arousing as it is, but it is. It so is. He is. I moan and my arms slide around his neck.
He replies to my urgency with a low, rough sound that turns me inside out in all the right ways. I want to be right here, in this moment. I don’t want to think about anything but this man. I press into him, on my toes to deepen the kiss. It’s then that I feel him just seem to snap. I feel his control because his need is mine. We aren’t just kissing anymore. We’re inhaling each other. We’re desperate for each other. We can’t stop touching each other. I don’t even know where I am anymore. I’m mindless, lost, and it’s everything and not enough.
Somehow I end up against the railing again, and Gabe’s still wearing his pants, but his cock is free and thick, and he’s produced a condom from somewhere. He rolls it down his erection and I watch, biting my lip right up until the moment that he’s pressing inside me, lifting me and suddenly I’m on the railing and on him, but that doesn’t last. He cups my backside and now he’s holding me, all of me. I’m clinging to him when he orders, “Lean back.”
“I’ll fall.”
“Trust me not to let you fall, Abbie.”
Abbie.
My father hated that name, so no one calls me that name, but I like it from him.
“Trust me,” he says again, his hand sliding to my back, between my shoulder blades, and I decide I will. I trust him.
I lean back and his hands hold me while his cock drives into me. He shifts and then he’s gripping my hips and pulling me against him even as he thrusts, his gaze raking over my breasts that sway between us. He repeats that move and I help him this time. I grind into him and we begin this wild dance of grind and thrust. Grind and thrust, until I’m right there again, incredibly, I’m there again. In that sweet spot that clenches my sex and then explodes into spasms around his cock.
Gabe groans and pulls me against him because I can’t seem to move. A moment later, I’m sitting on the railing again, and he shudders and quakes before I feel his muscles relax, his head buried in my neck. I reach up and cup his head, holding onto him, when I could let go. I could make this the end, but for reasons I can’t explain, I know it’s not. I feel it. We don’t end here and I can’t remember why I thought we should, why I thought we were a problem.
He picks me up and my legs wrap his waist as he starts walking, and in a few steps, I’m on my back on the couch, with him over the top of me. “How do you feel about pizza and conversation before we do that all over again?”
“I should—”
He kisses me, silencing me with his mouth before he orders, “Don’t say go. You’re not leaving, and if you try, I swear I’ll find some damn window that actually opens in this building and throw your clothes out.”
I laugh. “That’s a little extreme.”
“All right then. I’ll tie you up to my bed. I think we’d both enjoy that. Don’t you?”
Tied up.
I don’t like being tied up and with reason, and yet, I’m not telling him no. “I’m claustrophobic. I don’t do well when tied up.”
He winks. “I’ll keep your mind on my tongue and my fingers. Think about your pizza order. I’ll be right back.” He stands up and it’s then that I realize that he hasn’t even undressed.
I sit up and grab a blanket behind me, pulling it around me. Gabe walks to the bar, tosses the condom in what I assume is a trashcan and then walks toward me, that lion tattoo drawing my gaze, telling a story I’d like to understand but will probably never know. He didn’t even take his pants off. He’s not going to tell me about his mother.
He sits down next to me. “There’s a pizza joint I love around the corner. Frank’s. Ever tried it?”
I pull the blanket tighter around me. “No. I haven’t.”
“Well then, you’re in for a treat. What do you like on your pizza?”
“Cheese. I’m simple like that.”
“Cheese it is, then.” He grabs his phone and punches in a number. “Hey, Frank. A large pizza, half pepperoni and half cheese.” He listens a minute and looks at me. “I’m living on the wild side tonight.”
The wild side.
And he didn’t even take off his pants.
I cut my gaze and will myself to stop thinking about this. Why is this bothering me so badly? Why? I don’t know, but I want my clothes. I try to stand up and Gabe catches my arm. “Thanks, Frank,” he says, ending his call and setting his phone on the table. “What’s wrong? What just happened?”
“I want to get dressed before the pizza gets here.”
His eyes sharpen on my face. “You regret being here.”
“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t. I just—” I stop again, not sure what to say. I don’t like lies and he’s now arching a brow.
“You didn’t even take your pants off,” I say. “That feels weird.”
“I didn’t take my pants off,” he repeats.
“Yes. It feels weird. I want to get dressed and then maybe it will stop feeling weird.”
“I have a better idea,” he says and he stands up and the next thing I know, he’s lowering his pants and stepping out of them. He tosses them on the couch beside him and then presents himself to me in a pair of black biker-style underwear that hug his thighs, and other important parts of his body, rather nicely. “How’s this?” he asks, holding his hands out to his sides. “No more pants.”
I start laughing. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Believe it, sweetheart. Of course, I might shock the pizza delivery person, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Worth it? Worth it how?”
“Because now you won’t feel weird when I do this.” He sits down next to me, pulls me to him and drags us down on the couch, leaving my blanket behind, my naked body pressed to his. His hand between my shoulder blades, molding my naked breasts to his chest. “Do you feel weird?”
“No,” I say, feeling warm and wonderful instead. “But what about the pizza?”
He shifts us, rolling us to our sides, his hands sliding under my hair to my neck. “We’ll just make out like school kids until it gets here. We’ll fuck later. After we eat and you tell me all your secrets.”
My secrets.
He doesn’t really want to know my secrets.
I don’t really want him to know my secrets.
I decide to kiss him before he doesn’t want to kiss me again. I press my lips to his, letting him know that I’m all in. Let’s make out like school kids.
CHAPTER NINE
Abbie
We do indeed make out like school kids for about five minutes and it’s delicious and wonderful. He’s delicious and wonderful. Laying on his couch, our legs entwined, I am lost in this man and I feel how lost he is in me, how lost we are in each other. I don’t remember a time in my life when I was in
this kind of sultry, sexy haze with another human being. And he took his pants off.
I start laughing. “You really took your pants off.”
“What did you expect me to do?” he challenges. “You felt weird and for the record, I left my pants on because I needed the control. Otherwise, I would have ended up inside you, fucking you before you had that orgasm.” He strokes my hair. “Because you tried to undo me.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one who undid me,” I say, and with Gabe, I really don’t feel like this is giving him the power, but hey. If it empowers him to do anything he’s already done again, I won’t complain.
“And if you stay naked, I’m going to do it all over again,” he says as if he read my mind. “Let me grab you something to put on.” He kisses me and sits up, giving me a charming wink. “Don’t move. I like you naked and laying all picture-perfect across my couch.” He stands up and walks his picture-perfect backside around the couch.
I sit up and grab the blanket, charmed beyond belief by this man as I watch him disappear down a hallway behind the living area, which I assume leads to his bedroom. His bedroom. Will I end up there tonight? Do I want to end up there tonight? Of course, I do, but it’s a bad idea to stay if he even really wants me to stay. I’m a little too into this man and that scares me. I’ve been burned, so very burned, and so very recently.
“Hey.”
At the sound of Gabe’s voice, I twist right and look up to see him leaning over a railing. “What happened to staying naked and sprawled out on my couch?”
I laugh. “That would be weird again.”
“Then we’ll move to the bed. That won’t be weird at all.” As if he read my mind again about the bed, and even from here I can see the mischief and heat in his eyes.
He disappears into a room just behind him and I decide that I’m going to fall, and fall hard, for this man if I’m not careful. And the thing is that he could hurt me, he could, but I could hurt him, too, and not emotionally. Not even by way of my own desires. It’s time we talk, really talk. I tell myself to get up and get dressed, but I don’t. I hold that blanket around me and stare at the railing I’d held onto when Gabe’s mouth had been on the most intimate parts of me and I just can’t seem to move. That’s when my cellphone starts to ring.
I search for it and find my briefcase, which is somehow on the floor not far from my feet where I assume Gabe set it earlier. I really don’t remember. My phone is just inside the pocket and I find my mother’s number. I hit decline and text her: Sorry. I know I was going to try to make dinner, but I’m working late.
It’s not a lie. I did work late and I’m about to talk to Gabe about our problems. My mother replies with: Gabbie gabe birth! Three gorgeous golden boys. No girls! You know how Gabbie hates girls.
I laugh, especially since she accidentally typed gabe and I reply with: Yes she does. I might not make it by to see them but send pictures!
“More laughter,” Gabe says from behind me. “And I wasn’t even in the room.”
I twist around to eye Gabe, noting his low-slung sweats, but he’s still naked from the waist up, that lion tattoo majestic on his broad shoulder. “My mother sent me a text,” I explain. “She’s a vet and one of her patients gave birth.”
He sits down next to me. “Gabbie,” I say, which is kind of funny because you’re Gabe, and she typed this.” I show him the messages and now he laughs.
“Gabbie,” he says. “And she hates females. The name sounds a bit symbolic of something, but I’m not sure what. And for the record, I definitely do not hate any female of any species.”
“No female?” I challenge.
“Dislike a few,” he concedes, “but I hate with caution. A lesson I learned a long time ago.”
He hates with caution while my ex hates with ease. The man even hates me and he married me. Gabe indicates the T-shirt in his hand. “I thought you’d look exceptionally good in this.” He drops down to his knee in front of me. “If you don’t mind wearing my T-shirt, that is.”
The air shifts around us, and it’s like the world drops away. There is just me and this man in this room, in this world, on top of that dark ocean. Something is happening between us and it is wild, warm and wonderful in a way I have never known, in a way I can’t stop it from happening, and I don’t want to stop it. I don’t want everything else in my life to destroy this or him. I want to know this man. “Drop the blanket, Abbie,” he urges softly, using that name again, his voice warming.
I drop the blanket and his gaze rakes over my naked breasts, a hungry look on his face that has me clenching my thighs together. “You’re definitely trying to undo me,” he declares, his gaze lifting to mine, his voice all rough. “I’m going to leave the pizza at the door if you don’t put this on now.” He slides the T-shirt over my head and I poke my arms through the holes.
“You look like you’re ready for my favorite pizza now.”
“Considering I can really put down some pizza, you might have under-ordered,” I joke.
He moves to the coffee table and sits down in front of me. “Is that right?”
“It is. Pizza is my ultimate sin.”
“I’ll fix that soon, I promise.” His hands come down on my knees. “I have a list of sins you can commit that don’t include pizza, but they do include me. We’ll start working our way down it.”
I’m warm. I’m so very warm all over but I’m also worried. “You may not want to go down that list with me. I told you, Gabe. I’m trouble.”
“Because of Jean Claude.”
“Because of Jean Claude and my ex.”
“Who’s your ex?”
“Kenneth Lincoln. My ex is Kenneth Lincoln.”
He arches a brow. “As in the billionaire, Kenneth Lincoln of Lincoln Gas and Oil?”
“Yes. That’s him. And all of his money with that of Jean Claude’s can destroy. It can destroy you. It can destroy your brother.”
“And yet you wanted to hire my brother?”
“I didn’t know you then. I do now. And now that I do, I just need a recommendation. Someone who wants to fight Jean Claude or Kenneth or both, and win just to say they did it. Just for the credibility winning gives them. I need someone that isn’t you or your brother. And then I need to walk away after tonight.”
He studies me, his stare probing. “Why would you walk away if we weren’t representing you?”
“Because any man that gets close to me that has the ability to hurt Kenneth or Jean Claude will be a target. I’m not going to make you a target. I’m not going to be on the short list of females you hate.” I pull the T-shirt off. “So maybe we should just forget the pizza because I can’t stay long. I have to leave.”
CHAPTER TEN
Gabe
This woman rocks my world. She’s not leaving. “You’re not leaving, but yes, we are fucking again, but after we eat the pizza we just ordered.”
“You don’t understand,” she says, turning to face me, her damn nipples puckering under my T-shirt, and my cock refuses to ignore just how damn hot she is. It’s hard. I’m hot. This is not the time.
“I understand completely,” I say. “I deal with bad people all the time. I’ve dealt with my share of dangerous people and often. My fucking father is one of those dangerous people. So, if you expect me, or Reid for that matter, to cower, I’m not sure why you came to us in the first place.”
“I don’t expect you to cower,” she snaps back. “I expect just the opposite, but now you have a target on your chest because you’re personal with me.”
“And your ex wants to fuck around but keep you from the ten thousand fucking orgasms he denied you?”
“Yes,” she breathes out. “He wants to keep me from those orgasms. He wants to keep me from any form of happiness or pleasure.”
“Because he still wants you?” I ask, not liking that idea at all.
Her lips thin. “No. He doesn’t want me. I’m not sure I remember when he did. He wants to punish me because the
one thing I walked away with in the divorce, the one thing I asked for, he now needs. And I’m not giving it to him.”
The doorbell rings and I scrub my jaw. Damn, I’m hungry, but right now, I want to know what she has that her billionaire ex wants. Especially since it’s the only thing she didn’t walk away from. I run my hands down my legs and stand up. I waste no time paying for the pizza and returning to the living room, but I don’t go for plates or drinks. I turn to her. “What does he want?”
“The property my mother’s office and non-profit animal rescue sits on. She has hundreds of animals there that would be killed elsewhere. During the divorce, I took only a hundred thousand dollars and that land, and the money went to the shelter. He’s a freaking billionaire, Gabe, but I make my own money. I don’t want his. Now, he wants what I own.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if it’s about making me pay for walking away, or what. I’ve done the searches. I can’t find anything in public records that makes that land valuable.”
“What did he offer you?”
“Pathetic money, too little to even move the animals. This is my mother’s life. Really it’s mine, too. I grew up helping her. I still help her.”
“How’d you come by the property?”
“My ex bought it for me as a birthday gift our first year together.”
“What aren’t you telling me? It seems like you’re the one holding the cards. He pays you and pays you well or you walk from the deal.”
“He’s not going to pay me well enough to move the animals. This city is high-priced and impossible as far as regulations go. We can’t just up and move, and because we won’t, they’re playing dirty. My mother is suddenly getting all kinds of fines. Even the Fire Marshall has been out. We don’t have the money for those fines.”
“How much would you need to move?”
“We bought it for two million dollars and it was a mess. It’s now worth double that, but I literally can’t find a place that will work for what my ex is offering.”
His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Page 4
